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Topic: Why is my 5D3 so noisy??? (Read 20810 times)

I find that it takes a near perfect exposure at the extreme high ISO's. There is only about 5 stops of DR, and underexposure is very bad. More than 1/2 stop of overexposure can blow out highlights depending on the scene.Its definitely subject related, so learn the right way to expose for your subjects. Then check to make sure your highlights are not blown out.

The ISO 12800 image above was overexposed 0.3 stops while the ISO 25600 was 1/2 stop over and had some blown highlights.

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canon rumors FORUM

Better examples: Photo 1 is the unedited RAW file converted straight to jpg. I've then included two versions of edited photos. You can edit it them any way you'd want, I just applied two presets I happened to have to illustrate the point. This shot is at ISO 5000 and shot about +2/3 at this end of the court.

Now, the alternative here cayenne is to not shoot at ISO 5000 with a 2/3 stop overexposure, but rather shoot where the camera sees 0EV and shoot at ISO 3200. It would have been a tad dark still, and I would have had to raise the exposure in post. Looking at how bad that first file is, what do you think would have happened?

Too often we lose sight of the fact that photography is about capturing light, if we have the ability to take control of that light then we grow exponentially as photographers. More often than not the image is not about lens speed, sensor size, MP's or AF, it is about the light.

canon rumors FORUM

I'm loving the low noise on my 5D mkIII, but when i don't nail the exposure or not using the right settings for a shot, i have seen some noise (still 10^6x better than my 450D)... I then have re-shot with better success... Try setting up a similar scenario and test your camera with different settings? Then if you are still unsatisfied, take it back to where you bought it?

For me anyway, i usual find it is me not using the tool properly, rather than the tool misbehaving!

Just a quick example. I totally overexposed this shot, because it was so damn dark down there and midcourt was so damn bright. Much easier and cleaner to bring down in post vs. underexposing and lifting:

can you show the unedited shot for referencealso i'm guessing you shot with the 1Dx which will be even better than the 5dmk3

in addition to ETTR, suggest not take an image with hands pointing to camera lens (especially when you are closing to subject), unless you mean to make a story out of it... with any camera, you will have noise even with iso of 100, no exception...

If you shoot RAW you have to take the time to learn to process it, if you don't, can't or won't you are better off shooting a custom Picture Style jpeg.

Just curious, what did you do to it? I have my own ways of getting some noise out, but I bet there are better methods.

Very quick global adjustments on the jpeg, so nothing fancy.

I opened it in ACR via Bridge, even though it is a jpeg, this gives you the RAW style noise reduction options that are in Lightroom, I really like ACR/Lightroom noise reduction and can't imagine why people buy NR plugins. I adjusted the luminance noise slider until I was happy (there is no colour noise so I didn't use that adjustment), this is normally much more than most people, I find I can reapply the detail, but you have to get rid of the noise first. I then did a little sharpening in ACR with a heavy mask, this is just with the slider but it allows you to target the detail, his hair and eyes, whilst not touching the noise prone smooth areas. I then opened it in PS and applied global Smart Sharpen and a curves adjustment to the bottom third of the histogram, this kept the highlight detail where it was but gave better general exposure.

It sounds like a lot but there are no selections or layers involved, everything is global, and it took under two minutes. If I had the RAW I could easily get rid of all the noise and retain 99% of the detail using a very similar workflow in a similar time. Indeed for this kind of shot, say an event shoot, if you had 1,000 images all with similar exposure (but not using auto ISO!!!!) you could batch process all the RAW files to output jpegs (or anything else) after recording a simple action.

I find Smart Sharpen in PS way way better than the sharpening options in Lightroom for files with any kind of issues.

Hope this helps.

« Last Edit: May 24, 2013, 11:06:14 AM by privatebydesign »

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Too often we lose sight of the fact that photography is about capturing light, if we have the ability to take control of that light then we grow exponentially as photographers. More often than not the image is not about lens speed, sensor size, MP's or AF, it is about the light.

Just a quick example. I totally overexposed this shot, because it was so damn dark down there and midcourt was so damn bright. Much easier and cleaner to bring down in post vs. underexposing and lifting:

can you show the unedited shot for referencealso i'm guessing you shot with the 1Dx which will be even better than the 5dmk3

That would be great. BTW, how much do you push to the right in your indoor sports shots?

With a 1Dx, on CWA, my meter reading typically reads anywhere from +1/3 to +1 EV. I keep it in that window, or try to. I've gone up as high as +1 2/3 and it still came out fine in post-processing, but was pretty bright. With older cams, I kept changing the ISO to keep it around 2/3, but with the 1Dx this isn't necessary if you have time to post-process because the RAW files are just so nice.